In March 2022, William Vaughan, a UPS pilot, met with leaders from the Red Cross and Cologne, Germany emergency services to ask how he could help children fleeing the war in Ukraine. The answer was clear - children needed basic supplies. That same day, the idea for Operation BackPack4Kids (BP4K) was born. With help from other airline pilots and nonprofit partners, BP4K began assembling and delivering backpacks filled with essential items to refugee children in Germany, Poland, and Ukraine.